Dui Driver's Term Won't Mend Lives

August 22, 1989|By Bob Levenson Of The Sentinel Staff

It was 10 minutes after New Year's, and Sherry Whitehead and Tim Ceballos had plenty of reasons to be optimistic. They had just graduated from college. They were looking forward to starting careers and being on their own.

As they drove down Orlando's East-West Expressway toward Whitehead's apartment, they made plans to get up the next morning to jog.

Instead, they woke up in hospital beds.

Ceballos' right leg was shattered. It would require five operations in the next 18 months. His nose and cheekbone were broken, too.

By the time Whitehead awakened, surgeons had resewed the top of her scalp to her head and reshaped her chin. She had lost a tooth and suffered a deep cut near her jugular vein.

Monday, more than 1 1/2 years after the accident that shattered their lives, the two watched as a judge sentenced the drunken driver of the pickup truck that hit them to two years in prison and 11 years of probation.

Orange Circuit Judge Richard Conrad also revoked Dennis Desrosiers' driver's license for life. Desrosiers, 40, of Orlando, has a 12-page record of driving charges 1 and convictions, including a previous one for drunken driving. Before Monday, his license had been suspended 12 times in five years.

''Maybe, maybe, this will never happen again,'' Conrad said. ''I can't keep you from behind the wheel of a car, but I can make it tough for you.''

According to court records, Desrosiers had a blood-alcohol level just under 0.29 percent - nearly three times the legal limit - when his pickup truck crossed the median of the East-West Expressway near Bumby Avenue and hit two eastbound cars. Two people in the first car were barely scratched.

But Ceballos, now 27, and Whitehead, 25, were hit head-on. Both have undergone numerous operations - Ceballos on his leg, and Whitehead primarily on her face. Both still walk on crutches.

The two remember little about the accident and its aftermath. But not so their parents, who told Conrad they have virtually rearranged their lives to help their children recover.

''I cannot tell you what it is like to see your daughter lying in the hospital, her scalp peeled off her head, a piece of flesh hanging there that used to be her chin,'' Whitehead's mother testified.

While the two were recovering, Desrosiers was on the lam. He disappeared shortly after the accident, and Orlando police did not find him until Dec. 30, 1988.

On Monday, Desrosiers apologized to the couple and their families.

''I'm very, very sorry,'' he said. ''I have no excuse for what I did.''

The physical recovery has been only part of the problem for Ceballos and Whitehead. The two have been frustrated about having to put their lives on hold. Ceballos had just graduated from Florida Southern University in Lakeland and was trying to get into hotel management at Walt Disney World. Whitehead had graduated from the University of Alabama with a marketing degree.

Both said they have worked just a little since the accident. Both have had to give up jogging, racquetball and water skiing. They have experienced sharp personality changes.

''I used to be more outgoing, more friendly,'' Ceballos said. ''I don't have the ability to talk to people now.''

''I don't have the self-confidence I used to,'' added Whitehead. ''There's no direction. I just feel in limbo.''